This ConocoPhillips coker drum, barged to the Port of Lewiston, ID before permits were issued for overland travel, is one of approximately 250 currently proposed for a new permanent industrial corridor through the Northwest. Over the next three decades, existing contracts between oil corporations and Asian manufacturers could result in thousands of shipments traveling this corridor, clogging roads on most days of the year.

Along the entire length of the route, the Heavy Haul will pass world-famous like fly fishing rivers like the Main Clearwater (pictured here), the Lochsa, Lolo Creek, the Big Blackfoot – made famous by Norman MacLeans’s “A River Runs Through It” – the Dearborn and the Sun.

“Alberta oil is conflict-free energy,” stated MT Governor Brian Schweitzer. Indigenous communities suffering elevated cancer rates would not agree. Leaks from tailings ponds and other sources are polluting local waterways and fish populations, and endangering residents downstream of Tar Sands development on the Athabasca River.

Fully functioning boreal wetland ecosystems, like the one pictured here, are being ripped up to produce the costliest oil on the planet. It takes four tons of earth and four barrels of water to produce one barrel of tar sands oil. At full projected build-out, Tar Sands strip mining and drilling will devastate an area the size of Florida.

The Columbia River Gorge, pictured here, marks the beginning of the Heavy Haul’s roughly 1,500 mile-long journey from the Port of Vancouver, Washington – where the modules are unloaded from container ships to barges – to the Kearl Oilsands Project in northern Alberta. Corporations like Exxon – the wealthiest in the world – have chosen this fragile route over existing and less controversial alternatives for no reason other than protecting their bottom line.

This bridge sits near the Port of Lewiston, ID, the terminus of barge traffic on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, made possible by salmon-blocking dams. The farthest-inland port in the Western US, Lewiston is located 465 miles East of the Pacific Ocean, and is the unloading location for Exxon and Conoco’s loads.

The Lower Granite Dam, pictured here, is one of the four lower-Snake River dams whose series of locks and reservoirs allow barge traffic to travel between Lewiston, ID and the West Coast. Salmon advocates, fishermen, and Northwest tribes have fought for years to restore a free-flowing river, and they fear the repercussions of Big Oil’s deep pockets getting behind keeping the dams in place.

Before dams along the length of the Columbia and Snake Rivers blocked their passage, upwards of twenty million salmon made the trip from the Pacific Ocean to spawning streams in the Cascades and the Rockies. Today, due to dams such as the Lower Granite, the most prodigious salmon runs in the world have been reduced to a tenth of their former greatness.

Below you will find downloadable key documents

From Oregon to Montana, government and tribal officials, organizations of all kinds, and businesses have spoken out against the megaloads. On this page you will find just a sampling of those letters, resolutions, and reports. Please contact us for more information.

All Against The Haul is a homegrown effort working to stop the construction of a permanent industrial corridor for oversized loads to the Alberta Tar Sands through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Learn More »